7 yo boy wants to wear dress and tights to school

I can imagine that the priests outfit does look quite fun when you are 7years old. A lot of children love the idea of costumes and fancy dress.

I’ve worked with young children and noticed that regardless or their sex, some consistently choose the most elaborate costume from a fancy dress box- whether it’s a shiny spaceman’s outfit, or a sparkly princess dress.

If there is no mandatory uniform in his school, could you take him to shops where he can pick some things that he would consider fun to wear? Bright colours, different textures etc?

I think that's exactly my point.

If this has challenged you to think about how open minded you are about this, that's great. Knowing and understanding your biases is really helpful. I also think a 7 yo is old enough to understand that you think his choice could have consequences (teasing etc).

FWIW, my DS at 7 did often go to school in pink sparkles (no uniform). He also had a long hair phase at 11. Now he's much older and doesn't really wear much pink at all, and has a very conventional short haircut. My DDs have gone through different princess/sparkle/emo/saved hair/long hair/conventional dressing/not do conventional dressing phases etc. I'm totally fine with it. I had my own phases too. I personally think it's all very normal.

excellent!

Really? Looks more like your own prejudice about FWR showing that the actual discussion at hand.

👏👏👏
The whole thing, in a nutshell.

My DS2 wears tights under trousers as it's warmer. Compromise?

We generally conform to most social norms e.g. bathing frequently etc and not walking around naked unless at a nudist event. What is wrong with saying 'no' to this little boy? Explain why, too. That the norm of this culture is that boys do not wear dresses and tights anywhere. Give the princess dresses to a charity shop unless his siblings are sisters. Ffs who wants their DS ridiculed at school, or worse put on the 'gender affirming' pathway? Some societal norms need to be accepted. Times may change, but have not yet and the way they are going is not good.

This is actually a good point.

Ask him if he knows he has to pee sitting on the toilet and to direct his pee so it won’t wet his clothes!!

I think the reason why women/girls traditionally wore dresses and skirts, not trousers, is peeing without flashing your bum. Men and boys can just undo their fly.

It isn’t really necessary now, but it is our different plumbing.

At seven, deep and meaningfuls aren't going to produce a lot.

There's a range of possible motivations here. That it's something he sees girls wear but not boys and wants to break that as a means of playing with boundaries; that there's an excitement about breaking boundaries using clothes; that he sees girls clothes as having meaning, or he plain likes dresses.

The thing is: the clothes don't create the sex, girls wear trousers. I'm not keen on encouraging the whole 'lets use what we see as girls' clothes and identity for boys to enjoy breaking boundaries, and celebrating that as open minded coolness, because we're neck deep in misogyny and play with girls' identities for funsies at the moment through all that and it's not going well for the half of the human race who are female. And it opens up a whole potential hornets nest that he's quite innocently going to walk into.

I'd stick with a quite simple no, not at school.

The whole point of ‘uniform’ is, that everyone conforms!

He is 7 and shouldn’t be testing boundaries he should be messing with snails,painting,using glitter, swimming and shouting and bawling like all 7 years olds male and female do.

By giving our children ‘options’ we are placing more decision making on them that they shouldn’t have to handle in this carefree youth they have for such a short time.
Many decisions should and need to be made for them - their diet,their bath times, their bedtimes and indeed dressing practically and seasonally and we shouldn’t be encouraging children to break the rules as rules are an inevitable part of life.

So, for now-he needs to wear the uniform he already has, maybe shorts in summer.

We could say the world has gone mad if feminists, of all people, start acting as though your behaviour must match your sex (we do not say "gender" here). Surely when anyone is more free, we are all more free?

Christ, what is with the posters suggesting it's the school's job to "support" his fashion choices?

The school might allow this. But they'll be expecting that the other kids will make this boy's life a misery until he conforms.

Absolutely

So my child wants to wear a tutu to school.. should this be allowed and supported?? No!!

I live in London too.

I would be tempted to say something along the lines of:
"The whole point of having a school uniform is so that no one child
stands out, that everyone is pretty much the same, so you can't work out who is rich or poor etc from what they are wearing.

That's why they say things like 'no extreme hairstyles' (or whatever is specific to your school) because all the attention then goes onto the individual child rather than people just blending in and getting on with their work.

You know that wearing dresses and tights doesn't turn you into a girl and you know that a girl wearing trousers and socks doesn't turn her into a boy.
But we have a really odd situation in our country at the moment where some grown-ups are pretending that if a boy wears a dress or likes pretty things then that means he must be actually really a girl underneath it all. Which is all sexist bobbins.

And you have probably noticed that some kids might not be very kind to kids who dress or behave differently or they might ask silly or rude questions. Which would be a pain to deal with when you just want to play or get on with your work.

So while on one level it would be nice if anyone could just wear whatever they want to school, it's probably best to just stick with your usual uniform and save the dressing up stuff for other times."

We would say "usually in our community/culture/country boys wear trousers. Really they are much more comfy and easier to play in than skirts" then there's usually an interesting convo about what people wear at different times in history and in different countries. He might just want to be the centre of attention with 2 younger sibs.

I had one child who was a bit attention seeking and wanted to wear a dress for book day re David walliams book. But he'd never even read the book and just wanted to get people talking 🙄

Maybe negotiate and tell him on the next dress down day or party he can wear a kilt ? You are in existindo and here would not be that unusual ?
mate you worried about what other might say and hurt him by doing so or are you worried he actuality wants to be a girl ?

@Johnnysgirl what can I say, it’s true, he does and it’s true I’ve heard nothing negative. I do live in London though so maybe not as acceptable in conservative Tunbridge Wells or wherever.

Happy to be flamed for this but at the very young age of 7, I'd just say a simple 'no'. As a parent, you're allowed to decide what your child wears. At 17 it would obviously be his own decision but by then he should be more aware of the potential implications. By all means let him experiment at home though.

We had a boy at my child's school. He and his older Sister were about 10 months apart. He absolutely wore a skirt because his Sister was- and that was that.

After initial questions and answers from the kids- why are you wearing a skirt? because * is wearing a skirt. That was that. This was from about 5-8 years old. I noticed he started wearing the skirts less once he became more sporty; I guess shorts felt more practical. The kids played on the astroturf a lot- so falling over on that resulted in horrible grazes- so longer shorts/trackies seemed to be the preference for that reason.

As far as I could see, no real issues.

I think I might tell him he's can't wear a dress because it would get very complicated.

Unfortunately some old fashioned people would assume he's a girl, or that he thinks he's a girl.

Has he said why he wants to do this? I'd be tempted to double-check the uniform policy, ask him what he'll say to people who question/laugh at him, ask him what he'll say to any staff who ask him if he thinks he's a girl and then let him go to school in a dress if he still wants to!